Imagining a 'part two' for movies that never had a sequel

They're doing a sequel to "Wall Street" 23 years after the first film. Here are some possibilities for some of our other favorite movie characters.

Staff reports

Greed, Gordon Gekko famously proclaimed, is good.

The most memorable line from the most memorable scene from the 1987 film “Wall Street” helped earn actor Michael Douglas an Academy Award, and helped make shady Wall Street broker Gekko one of those iconic movie characters people remember years later.

The film’s director, Oliver Stone, hopes you are still interested. More than two decades since we last saw Gekko and his slicked-back hair, the sequel, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” comes to the big screen (it opens nationwide Friday).

That got us to thinking about other films from 10, 20, even 30 years ago that haven’t had a sequel. What are those beloved characters doing now? Are they still having adventures? Are they living quietly, happily, if dully ever after?

“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (1986)

When “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” ended, Ferris and best friend Cameron were about to graduate from high school, and Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? had half-seriously proposed to girlfriend Sloane.

Here’s what we know about Ferris: He challenges authority (skips school), lies chronically (to his parents, his principal and classmates), is highly persuasive (getting reluctant Cameron to skip school and hand over the car keys), mobilizes crowds (German-American parade), enjoys performing (“Danke Schoen”) and impersonates other people (Abe Froman, the sausage king).

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and move around once in a while, you could miss it,” Ferris says.

He also has an aptitude for computers, which he uses to rig up a snoring body in his bed and hack into the school to change his attendance record.

Cameron is indecisive, a slave to rules and a hypochondriac (“You’re not dying; you just can’t think of anything to do,” Ferris tells him).

Despite Cameron’s prediction that Ferris will become a fry cook, in a sequel, these two have teamed up as political consultants. Cameron handles the paperwork, while Ferris devises — and partakes in — a hilarious parade of political shenanigans, dirty tricks and hijinks with wife Sloane.

The premise allows Ferris to continue the comedic manipulation of his world, and makes good on Cameron’s assessment of Ferris: “As long as I’ve known him, everything works out for him. There’s nothing he can’t handle.”

— Kathryn Rem

“St. Elmo’s Fire” (1985)

When we left the Reagan-era 20-somethings in Washington, D.C., they were gaining a foothold in adulthood. Musician Billy was off to New York. Leslie planned to be alone for a while (leaving the men who love her, cranky journalist Kevin and skirt-chasing future politico Alec, in an awkward limbo). Sheltered Wendy kinda liked it in her brand-new place. Aimless Kirby had another post-college career plan. And Jules ... let’s just hope she enrolled in Consumer Credit Counseling.

Did they remain pals after all that drama? Do they reunite each year during Georgetown University’s homecoming weekend at the old bar?

Or, like the rest of us, did they lose touch as jobs and families and other interests took us away from the people we knew when we were young?

Sure, it would be sad if middle-aged Billy and Kirby were only Facebook friends who hadn’t seen each other since 1995. But wouldn’t it be cool, all these years later, if Kevin wrote an article exposing an extramarital affair involving … U.S. Rep. Alec Newbary?

— Brien Murphy

“All the President’s Men” (1976)

When Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s “Deep Throat,” W. Mark Felt, died in 2008, former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. commemorated the event by speculating that a news publication uncovering a Watergate-caliber scandal would likely be a much different task than it was in the early 1970s with the advent of the Internet, 24-hour cable news channels and bloggers joining the chase.

“The story would become fodder for around-the-clock argument among the blowhards on cable television and the Internet. Opinion polls would be constantly stirring up and measuring the public’s reaction,” Downie wrote in the 2008 column, “Could We Uncover Watergate Today?”

He’s right.

Investigative reporting of government policies and actions is a lot different today. There are more reporters, more news outlets investigating and more government officials willing to blow the whistle. And as Downie points out, the impact of such reporting is felt nearly immediately these days, as opposed to having a lasting effect on public officials’ decision-making and ethics.

I’m not interested in seeing a sequel to “All The President’s Men,” because, frankly, we all know what Woodward is up to these days (Bernstein simply isn’t pretty enough for the media to pay the attention they pay to Woodward).

But, how would Woodward and Bernstein go about this story in today’s climate? Who are the Woodward and Bernsteins of this era of viral journalism — where a scoop of Watergate’s magnitude is nearly impossible? Let’s see a big-screen take of the Walter Reed Medical Center investigation, or let’s find a big star to play WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange.

I hear Dustin Hoffman is available.

— Molly Beck

“Less Than Zero” (1987)

When we last saw the characters from the film adaptation of novelist Brett Easton Ellis’ “Less Than Zero,” protagonist and college freshman Clay had fled from Beverly Hills, where he found his high school friends spiraling into drug abuse, sexual deviancy and a general immorality marked by excess.

The film spoke volumes about the main character’s disillusionment with young, wealthy Generation X’ers. His old friends found their only outlets in casual sex and widespread cocaine use. Blair, his high school girlfriend, was hooking up with Julian, a male prostitute and cocaine dealer who borrowed money from Clay to help pay drug debts. Clay, ever Julian’s friend, was trying to help his old pal once more become the lovable guy he was in high school.

Sure, Julian dies at the end of the film version of “Less Than Zero” as Clay and Blair drive off on a California highway. So we can rest assured that Robert Downey Jr. won’t be reprising his role as the deceased drug dealer.

But Andrew McCarthy (Clay) and Jami Gertz (Blair) are still alive (so to speak), and the time is right for a comeback. Ellis this year published a sequel to “Less Than Zero,” again borrowing from an Elvis Costello song for the book’s title: “Imperial Bedrooms.”

Join the crew again as Clay, a screenwriter in New York City, returns to Los Angeles to cast his new film adaptation and confront his old friends — and some demons within — as we see the protagonist reassess his roots in a quest to better understand his own narcissism and sadistic tendencies.

Andrew McCarthy’s career could use a boost.

— Rhys Saunders

“Top Gun” (1986)

“If you screw up just this much, you’ll be flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog (bleep) out of Hong Kong,” says the squadron commander in “Top Gun.”

Who wouldn’t want to see Tom Cruise’s post-military career? Perhaps, after one too many incidents buzzing the tower, he really would be flying a cargo plane.

One day, while bringing a load of FedEx packages across the South Pacific, engine trouble plunges Mav’s plane into the water.

Our hero washes ashore on a deserted tropical island. All he’ll have with him are a few packages, one of which contains a soccer ball he’ll reshape into a head, becoming his lone friend and touchstone for his tenuous grip on reality.

After a few years, with a long beard and remarkable spearfishing acumen, he and Spalding will take to the seas in search of home.

Will he make it? Find out in “Top Cast Away,” coming never to a theater near you. (And that’s why some sequels are better left unmade.)